


A Little Extortion

by puckity



Category: Drake & Josh
Genre: Accidental Crushes, Awkward First Times, Blackmail, Humor, M/M, Sleeping Kisses, Step-Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-16
Updated: 2007-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:38:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1909506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megan charges a steep price for her silence after catching Drake doing something other than sneaking out during one of his and Josh’s numerous groundings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Extortion

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007; my first Drake & Josh fic.
> 
> Set sometime during Season Four, pre-movies.
> 
> Beta'd by the amazing Amber and Rachel.
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/).

“What…what are you _doing_?”

Drake stopped dead in his tracks. He remembered Josh blabbing away during an episode of _World of Legumes_ about plant camouflage or something; he hadn’t been paying attention to the details. Who could concentrate on boring stuff when there were giant peanuts on the screen? But now he really wished he’d tuned into that particular lecture because he was pretty sure it would’ve come in handy right about now. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to visualize Josh’s droning over the montages of oversized nuts.

 _No sudden movements. Blend into your surroundings. Be very, very quiet._ That sounded like Josh. Or maybe it was Elmer Fudd. Whatever, the advice sucked anyway. Past his frozen body Megan stood in the doorway, looking genuinely shocked. For once. If this wasn’t such a horrible situation he might have actually been pleased with himself for finally getting her.

“I’m going to ask you one more time before I jump to loud and sleep-waking conclusions; _what_ are you doing?” As her voice became increasingly shriller, Josh shifted gently underneath Drake. He decided that this whole camouflage thing was crap and leapt off Josh’s bed like he was just as surprised by this inappropriate scene as Megan was.

“I was…just…you see, there was this _bug_ and it crawled into his mouth—it was _huge_ —and I thought he was going to choke and what kind of brother would I be if I let him die like that in his sleep so I just…well, I was just gonna…” Drake broke off uncertainly; the look on Megan’s face told him she wasn’t buying his lame cover story.

“What? You were just going to suck the bug out of his trachea? So I walked in on you performing respiratory breathing exercises on Josh _while he was asleep_ and _not_ you making out with your— _our_ —poor, unsuspecting, slumbering brother?” Megan was practically screaming now, and Drake kept frantically looking over at Josh to make sure he was still snoring.

“Um, yes?” It was a pathetic last move, but probably also his best bet. Megan stared at him coldly, looked at Josh, then moved back to him, took a deep breath and opened her mouth wide. Drake raced forward.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, _no_!” Scooping her up and soaring out the door, Drake didn’t stop running until he hit Megan’s room. The hum of panic in his head distracted him for a while before he realized Megan was still dangling in his arms. She glared at him like she was trying really hard to make his head explode with her mind. Terrified, Drake set her down slowly and extra carefully.

“I—I’m sorry Megan,” He edged back towards the door, hoping to get a lot of distance between them relatively quickly. “But I, I couldn’t let you…wake Josh up. That would be so…rude. Yeah, rude. It’s rude to wake someone up from an afternoon nap. And Josh has been working really hard lately and waking him up would just be cruel, which I know is kind of your ‘thing’ but still I don’t think—“

“If you don’t want me to hurt you in ways that are so bad the government couldn’t even _make_ them illegal, you will shut your big, dumb mouth right now.” Drake’s jaw clamped tight on cue. His hands flailed behind him, grasping unsuccessfully for the door knob. Still fuming, Megan thumped past him and locked the door bolt. The ominous clank made Drake’s stomach plummet.

“You are not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what was going on in that room.” She spun around on him and he yelped. “And if you _ever_ pick me up like that—”

“I know, I know. Sorry.” He fidgeted nervously with his thumbnail. This worst case scenario was compounded by the extreme discomfort of being in his evil little sister’s room. He eyed every pink and sparkly object, waiting anxiously for some hidden assault. Meanwhile Megan stood in front of him, arms crossed and one foot tapping in rising irritation.

“Well?”

“Well…” He tried that goofy grin that worked on every other member of the female sex, exempting him from any responsibility or necessity for explanation. Megan walked past him to the door without so much as a girlish quiver.

“I bet _Josh_ would be interested in hearing your explanation.”

“No, wait!” Megan paused with her back to him and he could almost see that vicious smile of hers curling. She peered over her shoulder and sure enough, there it was.

“I’m waiting. But not for long.”

Drake wondered if he could fake a seizure or a heart attack or something like that. Anything to distract her. What was the difference between a stroke and a heart attack, again? He coughed once, twice, and cleared his throat a few times. Scratched his head, clapped a little. Megan reached for the door knob.

“IwasreallyboredandIwantedtoseeifI’dbeagoodkisserwithJoshsoIkissedhimwhilehewassleeping!” Drake felt oddly relieved now that he’d sort of confessed, but as Megan continued to stare blankly at him his foreboding nervousness returned.

“So, you were _bored_ and you decided to molest Josh? Is that the gist of it?”

“No!” Drake’s denial rang with genuine offense. “I did not _molest_ him, geez. I mean, what Josh doesn’t know can’t hurt him right? No harm no foul.” He grinned smugly at his logic, and for a second he thought that Megan’s silence proved his reasoning to be indeed flawless.

“What?!”

Drake sighed. He knew he’d set his hopes too high.

“Are you seriously that much of a moron? There are pranks and then there are lines you just don’t cross no matter how much hilarity may potentially ensue—” Drake thought he heard a little regret in her voice at that. “And then there is _this_.

“This wasn’t a prank! I wasn’t playing a prank on him…or on you for that matter!” Megan’s eyes narrowed and Drake’s chest felt like it was shrinking against his lungs. Lying to her—even little white maybe-half-lies—was bad, bad news. He scrambled to sound completely honest. “I wasn’t, really!”

“So you were just trying to alleviate your boredom, and you figured that you’ve made out with all the teenage girls in the San Diego area, why not start on the boys?”

“Yes—no! Wait…what?” In his mind, Drake tossed around the potential meanings for the word alleviate. “Look, it’s no big deal. Just…please don’t tell Josh about this.” His lungs seized up painfully.

“If it’s no big deal, then you shouldn’t care whether Josh finds out or not.” Megan smiled that sugary sweet smile that told Drake he wasn’t going to like what came next. “And I feel it is my moral obligation to inform him about it.”

“Moral obligation?!” Beads of sweat pricked up along his forehead. “Since when have you ever had a moral obligation to do anything?!”

Megan paused and chuckled a little. “This is true.” She eyed him coolly again. “Why were you bored anyway, and why couldn’t you have done something _else_ to allevi—stop being bored? You know, something that didn’t involve groping your sleeping stepbrother.”

“I was not groping him!” The suggestion that Drake needed someone— _anyone_ —to be asleep in order for him to get some action was particularly insulting. Still, given the circumstances…Drake swallowed his pride and moved on. “And I couldn’t leave our room. Josh and I are grounded because of that whole limeade stand scam that we were running…”

“Ah, right.” Megan nodded sympathetically.

“Those neighborhood kids are real punks.” Drake muttered bitterly and they both held a brief silence for another foiled plot.

“Whelp,” Megan turned towards the door again. “As much as I empathize with your punishment, I still feel as though Josh should know that he is sharing a room with a predator.”

“No, please Megan!” Drake grabbed her sleeve, then released it after she shot him a warning look. “Come on, I’ll do anything you want if you promise not to tell him!” She paused.

“Anything?” Drake really did not like that look, but it was too late to go back now. “Would you agree to be my personal manservant?”

“Sure!” Drake didn’t really know what a manservant was. He’d been expecting her to tell him to cut out his own kidney or raise a bunch of tarantulas or something equally horrific; this seemed tame by comparison. And a manservant sounded kind of cool, like a fancy job. He held out his hand, eager to seal this transaction and her mouth. “Deal?”

She shook harder than any thirteen-year old had the right to. “Deal. Now get out of my room.”

“Not a problem.” He grabbed the knob, but didn’t turn it. “Hey, how long do I have to be your manservant person?”

“Depends.” She tapped on the glass of her hamster cage and smirked at him. “How long do you want to keep your little secret from Josh?”

\---

“Ow, ow, ow! Owwwwwwww!” Drake’s fingertips sizzled as they rubbed against the chalky glass. The steel wool stung his palms. Scrubbing Megan’s old beakers was maiming him. “This _really_ hurts, Megan! Like, melting-skin hurts!”

“That’s why I told you to wear safety gloves.” Megan didn’t even lower her magazine to look at him. “But someone was too cool for gloves. It’s your own fault if you get chemical burns.”

“What do you even have that could do this?” He picked up another beaker coated in hardened green foam and tossed the half-cleaned one into the finished pile. Megan glared out at him from behind “Cutest Animals Unlimited” at the rattle of glasses.

“I told you not to throw around my beakers. If you break one, I’ll make you buy me a whole new set.” Drake muttered disgruntled under his breath and Megan leaned menacingly forward on her bed. “ _What_?”

“Nothing, nothing!” Drake focused his attention back on his hand-disfiguring task. “Seriously though, how did you get the chemicals and stuff to do all this?”

“I have people. Besides, it’s nothing that your high school chemistry class doesn’t use.” She smiled indulgently at him. “Not that I expect you to pay enough attention in class to know that, but you should at least recognize some of the names from hearing Josh go on and on about his science fair projects.”

Drake couldn’t recall the specifics of any of Josh’s boring science fair snorebots. He retained giant magnets, Mocha Cola, and Mindy, and he was pretty sure that none of those were the names of chemical compounds. Of those he knew oxygen because even he wasn’t that stupid, and he knew helium because once he sucked it out of a balloon and started talking like one of those lollipop people in _The Wizard of Oz_. Everything else had been in one ear and out the other.

“So you don’t actually care about Josh’s mind then; you just want him for his _body_ , huh?” Megan casually crossed her arms and snickered. “You really are shallow, you know that right?”

Drake stopped scrubbing in irritation. “First of all, I’m not shallow. Maybe I’m not “deep” or whatever, but I totally have levels.”

“Yeah.” Megan scoffed. “Levels of boobishness.”

“Ha, ha.” Drake’s sarcastic laugh didn’t seem to faze her. “And I don’t just want Josh for his body. I don’t want him at all, I keep telling you—” The same explanation he’d been spewing for the last week was interrupted by a tentative knock at the door.

“Megan?” Josh’s wary voice echoed from the hallway. “May I open your door? I’m just looking for Drake; I have no intention of actually coming _into_ your room and disturbing you.” Ever since the time they thought they killed her hamster, Josh and he had been avoiding her room at all costs. Even invited and under supervision, Drake still felt nervous being there.

“Drake’s in here.” The door swung open, and Josh stared incredulously at his brother. Megan sat up. “Did I say you could open the door?”

“Um, well…sorry.” Josh looked anxiously around at anything but her. She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Anyway. Drake, what are you doing in here? And…why are you scrubbing out beakers?”

“He’s doing it because he agreed—” Drake cut her off mid-sentence, even though he knew that was one of her pet peeves.

“It was a favor I promised her! No big deal, right Megan?” He laughed loudly, ignoring the throbbing in his fingertips.

“Whatever.” Megan plopped back against her pillows and resumed leisurely reading her magazine. Josh looked at him questioningly, like he was torn between finding out what was really going on here and not prolonging the amount of time he had to be in the room.

“Oookay. Well, when you’re done will you come upstairs? I found this awesome site about band promotion that I thought you would like to see.”

“Totally, man. In fact, I can finish this some other…” From the bed, Megan shot daggers at him. “Um, right. I’ll come up after I finish cleaning and organizing these beakers.”

“Sweet.” Josh grabbed the knob to shut the door, clearly eager to get out of Megan’s domain.

“Uh, Josh?” At Drake’s tentative tone, Josh paused.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I have levels?”

For a second Josh stared blankly at Drake, like he didn’t quite understand the question. Then his face cracked and he burst into one of his fits of laughter. For a minute or so he just stood there doubled over, with the door still open and everything. Drake fumed in aggravation, his lips twisting into a pout. Finally Josh stood up again, wheezing and taking deep breaths to regain his composure. With one last look back at Drake and an accompanying chuckle, he closed the door. Drake could still hear him giggling in that dumb way of his from down the hallway.

On the bed, Megan snickered behind a cover with fuzzy brown balls and giant yellow eyes leering back at him. “Told you.”

Drake huffed resentfully and went back to slaving away over the beakers, thinking about how he was so going to tell Walter that it was Josh who stepped on and smashed the caboose for his toy train set.

\---

“So then Dad tells me that he’ll have to drive all the way out to Albuquerque to get another hand-carved caboose! He says that he bought it from a tribal museum at a Pueblo village and that he met the women who carved it and she said that if he didn’t take good care of it misfortunes would rain down upon him.” Josh sighed as he flipped aimlessly through the T.V. channels. “Plus he says that I’m gonna have to pay for the replacement _and_ drive out there with him. You know what the dry heat does to my rash!”

“Yeah, sorry man.” Drake patted his shoulder half-heartedly and went back to eating his pudding. “But hey, what is Walter even talking about? Misfortunes rained down on him long before you broke his caboose. You know, because he’s a weatherman? Get it?” Drake chuckled at his own pun as Josh shot him a dark look. “And anyway, why are Pueblo Indians making toy trains? Don’t Indians ride horses? Do they even use trains?”

Josh looked at him in that way that meant he’d said something idiotic, but before he could swallow his pudding and ask for clarification Josh shook his head dismissively.

“What I want to know is, how did Dad find out it was _me_ who stepped on his caboose in the first place?” Josh glared suspiciously at him while Drake put on his most innocent, puppy-dog expression.

“Yeah.” Josh scoffed. “I bet.”

Drake smirked, pleased with himself and his little bit of payback. Finally choosing a rerun of _Action Masters: Duel to Destruction_ , they settled in for their usual Thursday evening in front of the television. Drake spooned the vanilla pudding into his mouth—Josh had been trying to perfect his new recipe and he’d been using the opportunity to get free samples every night—as his glance flickered between the spandex-clad girls on the screen and his brother’s relaxed profile.

Girls in spandex had undeniable appeal. They were all…bouncy. Bouncy was good. Bouncy was fun. And bouncy had been just fine up until a week and a half ago.

It was probably the dumbest thing Drake had ever done, and he’d done some really dumb stuff in his life. Josh hadn’t been speaking to him—again—because his botched money-laundering-through-limeade-stands plan had gotten them grounded the same weekend Josh had tickets to see the new Blaine Darvey show downtown. Really, it was all that kid next door, _Robby’s_ , fault. If he wasn’t such a crybaby—and a _loud_ one at that—their parents would never have found out about the scheme. In fact, Drake was pretty sure that the only reason he and Josh had even gotten in trouble in the first place was because their parents thought grounding them might shut up that ear-splitting shriek of Robby’s. Drake hadn’t minded so much since Alicia, his date for Saturday, had cancelled last minute to visit her dying great-grandmother in the hospital. But Josh was mad. Drake tried telling him that he’d drive him out to the next regional meeting for Oprah’s Book Club, but it didn’t help. Josh just ignored him, and after an uncomfortable hour of sitting in silence he laid down on his bed and went to sleep.

At first, Drake assumed he was pretending. He started whispering things like “Hey Josh, your Grammy is here!” and “Sure Mindy, I’d love to make out with you.” Josh’s snores got louder. Next he tried flicking things at him from across the room—rubber bands, paper clips, ping pong balls. When he hit him in the face with a sock he thought Josh was going to wake up and yell at him, but he only grunted lightly and shifted onto his back. Then Drake grabbed a dull pencil and went over to prod him; whenever he couldn’t sleep at night Drake’s favorite thing to do was watch Josh squirm as he got poked. He’d bat away imaginary monsters and if Drake was really lucky Josh’s dream would be vivid enough for him to mutter what he thought was attacking him. Once he mumbled something about a giant squid and Drake freaked him out the next day by suggesting they go out for calamari.

After a while, tormenting Josh in his sleep got boring. Drake thought about sneaking out—Josh wouldn’t even know he was gone—when the idea struck him. And it honestly seemed like a good one at the time. For a while now, he’d been thinking about how he could compare his kissing skills to other guys’ kissing skills. It was great that all the girls thought he was an awesome kisser, but that didn’t prove anything to some of the boys at school. They just said that girls had low standards. Drake didn’t entirely follow their logic, but he wasn’t about to let his make out reputation get tarnished. In fact, about a week earlier Mark Fletcher had called him out about it while he was sweater-shopping with his mom and Megan at the mall. He’d said that Drake’s kissing skills were nothing more than a pathetic rumor and that he bet his grandfather kissed better than Drake did. Drake offered to let Mark give him a test-run right then and there. It wasn’t like he wanted to make out with guys, but he’d do it for the sake of his honor. And he would have gone through with it, too, if his mom hadn’t dragged him away to look at cardigans. But ever since then, this whole thing had been bugging him. And now—thanks to another failed scheme—he had been presented with the opportunity to regain his confidence and avoid all the awkwardness and gossip that kissing a guy in public would create. He could kiss Josh while he was asleep to see if his talents still applied to guy standards, and then on Tuesday he’d be able to make out with Carrie worry-free.

It had seemed like a foolproof plan, so Drake was still a little confused on how it all went so wrong.

The first problem was one he really should have anticipated; it wasn’t some random person he was kissing, it was Josh. If he put together the amount of time he collectively knew all of his former girlfriends it was still probably less than the amount of time he’d known Josh. The second problem was a purely logistical one—it’s surprisingly hard to kiss someone while they are snoring. And the third, and most serious, problem was just plain poor planning—he hadn’t locked the door beforehand. That, more than anything else, was why he was in such a predicament now. If Megan hadn’t walked in on him he could have just acted like it never happened and no one would’ve been the wiser. He really wished he’d locked that door.

Of course, if he’d just kept it to a quick peck on the lips this wouldn’t be an issue now. The truth was that Megan walked in on the third time Drake had kissed Josh. The first time he’d been so nervous that Josh would wake up that he’d hovered over him for thirty seconds before swooping down to barely touch his lips. Josh didn’t even shift and Drake almost wept in relief. The second time he moved more slowly and forced his lips to treat that mouth like it wasn’t actually attached to his stepbrother. He tried to imagine it was one of his past girlfriends instead, but he couldn’t seem to recall the details of any of their faces. All he could see was Josh’s abnormally large head, bushy eyebrows, pudgy nose, and mop of curly dark hair. His lips were soft too, even more so than some girls’ were. And they weren’t coated in all that gooey lip gloss either. It was probably because Josh used that special prescription balm. When he finally pulled away and opened his eyes Josh was still lying there, still sleeping and still fully unaware of what Drake had done. Drake never really felt guilty about most of the things he did, but he did have enough decency to at least blush at that.

That second time should have been it. Drake knew that he’d made his point and now he could relax about his reputation. But he couldn’t quite stop staring at Josh. When he was awake he always looked so frazzled and stressed out, things that he’d probably find a way to blame on Drake. But asleep he looked peaceful and calm. Something about it made Drake want to just cuddle him. Although he would never publicize it, he and Megan both shared a soft spot for cute things. And though nothing about awake Josh was particularly cute, sleeping Josh was a different story all together.

 _One more time couldn’t hurt._ He repeated that over and over to himself as he bent down to kiss Josh again. Now that he had gotten over the initial weirdness of it, he found that it actually wasn’t all that bad. They had kissed once before—that time it was Josh who kissed _him_ —but Josh had been in an Oprah-induced delirium and Drake had been so shocked that the sensation didn’t really register. This time Drake moved slowly and casually, alternating between brushing their lips and pressing them together hard. His heart beat fast against his ribcage and even as he tried to control his body his face flushed hot. Drake could have swore that he heard Josh whimper softly and move against him but then suddenly there was someone who was neither him nor Josh in the room, clearing their throat forcefully. He looked up hesitantly to find Megan standing in the doorway. And that was how it came to this. Drake secretly watching Josh, fully aware of being caught up with his little quirks and mannerisms. Tracing and retracing the lines of his face and body like some pitiful little girl with her first crush. He was Drake Parker, he thought resentfully. He didn’t have crushes, he had dates.

And he especially didn’t have crushes on guys. Except for Devon Malone from Zero Gravity, but that was a special case. He didn’t need to have crushes on guys; like half the planet was girls and that should totally be enough, even for him. And he especially _especially_ didn’t have crushes on family members. That was just…creepy. Kids with three arms and a tail creepy. Not that Josh and him were blood relatives and not that they could even have horribly mutated kids and really they’d only been brothers for three years but still. If cousins were off limits he was pretty sure stepbrothers were a no-go too. There were so many reasons why this was not a good thing and still Drake couldn’t stop himself from getting more and more wrapped up in it.

“Um…can I help you with something?” Drake shook himself out of his thoughts and found Josh staring at him with a puzzled expression.

“What?” Drake instinctively inched towards the other end of the sofa. “No. I mean, I was just thinking.”

“Oh really?” Josh sounded less than persuaded.

“Yeah. But I wasn’t thinking about you or anything. I was just thinking about…stuff. That’s all.” Josh looked at him skeptically and Drake started to sweat. “Pudding! I was thinking about pudding! Your pudding. So I guess that technically means I was thinking about you in some way…”

“What about my pudding?” Josh reached for the tupperwear container in his hands, but Drake snatched it away. He still had pudding to finish.

“I was just thinking that this one is really good, but it still needs to be a little thicker.”

“You keep saying that. I know you are just trying to get me to make you more pudding. I’m not a Loopy Lucy, you know!”

“Fine, whatever.” Drake rolled his eyes and shoved another spoonful into his mouth. “But don’t blame me when you end up with an _almost_ perfect pudding recipe.”

Josh tapped his fingers agitatedly on the remote; Drake knew he was trying to distract himself with the commercial for heavy duty dishwashing soap. After a minute he threw the remote down on the coffee table.

“Fine.” He muttered grimly without glancing at Drake.

“Good.” Drake forced his attention back on the spandex girls who were now getting ready to do a ninja battle. “By the way, vanilla is nice and all but tomorrow would you make butterscotch?”

\---

“Dude, where have you been? It’s past midnight!” Josh stopped pacing in the center of their room and pointed an accusatory finger at Drake.

“I was helping Megan with something.” Around nine o’clock Megan had informed Drake that he was going to record a CD of N’Sync covers for some girl in her class who loved both him and boy bands, and who was having a super-cool pool party that Megan wanted to be invited to. She made him sing for three hours straight; she wouldn’t even give him a glass of water. And now his voice was all dry and scratchy. This manservant job was the worst thing ever.

“Megan, huh?” Josh looked both suspicious and impressed. “You two have been doing a lot of stuff together recently. You aren’t, like, planning some huge prank on me are you?”

“Ha, no. I wish.” Josh glared at him. “I mean, they were just a few favors I owed her, that’s all.” He’d been working as Megan’s slave for almost two and a half weeks now and every day was worse that the one before. She kept coming up with more things for him to do, more annoying little tasks. At first it was just one or two chores a day, but now he had to make her meals and snacks and polish her oboe and bathe her hamster and be the test subject for her sadistic little experiments. Plus her constant threatening to tell Josh was beginning to make him paranoid. He was never really good at mind games well-rested, but when he was exhausted they were just cruel.

“Favors? What fav—” Josh was interrupted by Drake’s name echoing throughout the house. He yelped and raced past Josh into his bed, pulling his blanket over his head just as the door flew open.

“Drake! Get up, Drake. I know you aren’t asleep yet!” Megan stood beneath his loft bed with her hands on her hips. He peered out anxiously from under his covers.

“Drake, get out of bed right now! You need to rerecord ‘Space Cowboy’! The audio got all messed up!” Behind her, Josh snickered.

“Look Megan, I’m exhausted and croaky and my voice is going to sound terrible if I sing anymore tonight. Your little friend can wait one more day for her present. Now please, if you have one tiny bit of compassion in that black and evil soul of yours, let me go to sleep!” With that, Drake threw the blanket back over his head and held his breath, praying that she would just leave him alone for the night.

After a while, he heard a deflated exhale. “Fine. You’d better not try to weasel out of it tomorrow.”

From under the covers he called out, “I won’t!”

Listening to the sound of padded slippers shuffling towards the door Drake thanked his mom’s genes for giving his little sister an ounce of mercy. Then the shuffling stopped and the door creaked quietly.

“Oh, Josh. I almost forgot. When you and Drake were grounded for that limeade stand thing, I walked in on him making out with you in your sleep and I’ve been making him be my personal manservant in exchange for me not telling you. Night.” The lights flicked off and the door slammed shut, leaving nothing but a dark and choking silence over the room. It made up for the fact that inside, every part of Drake was screaming.

He lay rigid for several minutes, hoping that Josh would just act like nothing had happened and go to bed. After a while, he actually began to convince himself that Josh thought he’d fallen asleep. He was getting ready to peek out when Josh’s voice, low and threatening, sounded somewhere nearby.

“Drake?”

His own voice, when it finally came out, cracked with alarm. “Wh—what?”

“Is Megan telling the truth?”

“Um…” Drake scrambled for an explanation that wasn’t there. Never particularly good at real explanations, let alone fake ones, he opted instead to mumble, “Maybe?”

“MAYBE?!” The sudden piercing shout caused him to jump up and somersault off the side of his mattress. “Maybe?! What do you mean, maybe?!” The vein in the side of Josh’s neck pulsed ominously.

“Maybe—it’s that gray area between yes and no. It’s also a convenient answer when yes or no might get you into a lot of trouble.” Drake tried to sound smooth as he crawled back onto his bed, rubbing the spot on his head that had smacked into the wall. Josh fumed at him from about three feet away.

“Trouble? You’re gonna wish trouble was all you had by the time I get done with you!” Before Drake could even think about getting away Josh leapt up the loft ladder, threw himself onto the bed, and began furiously smacking and slapping him. Drake tried weakly to defend himself against the girly assault that Josh liked to call “Josh Unleashed”, but finally gave up and resorted to curling up into a ball in an attempt to protect his most valuable asset—his face—from the brunt of the attack.

“You—scum—you—pervert—what—are—you—thinking—taking—advantage—of—me—while—I’m—in—ca—pa—ci—ta—ted!” Each word was punctuated by a particularly harsh blow, and Drake decided that if he didn’t want to be really sore tomorrow for all the wrong reasons he should at least try to explain himself.

“I wasn’t taking—Ow!—advantage of you—Ow!—I really—Ow!—wasn’t—OW!” Josh started focusing the majority of the beating on his back and sides, occasionally getting in a slap upside the head.

“Yeah, right! Then what would _you_ call it if a _pervert_ groped you while you were asleep, huh?!”

Drake raised his head in indignation. “I don’t know why everyone keeps calling it groping but I was not groping you!”

“Everyone?! Who is everyone?!” Josh reeled back with a look of disgust on his face that, quite frankly, hurt Drake’s feelings a little. “This is some sort of sick joke, isn’t it? You had your friends take pictures, right, and now they’re going to make a website for it, aren’t they? What is it going to be, www.gropingjoshnichols.com or something?”

“ _What?_ ” The amount of time it took Josh to go from angry to paranoid continuously astonished Drake. “What are you talking about? No, there is no website, geez! Anyway, why would I post pictures of myself— _awake_ and _coherent_ —kissing you while you are asleep?! I don’t want that all over the Internet!”

The hitting stopped abruptly. “Well, then what?” Josh eyed Drake distrustfully. “What was it? A dare? A bet? How much money did you make off of my slumbering humiliation?” At the mention of _Josh’s_ humiliation, Drake snapped.

“ _Your_ humiliation?! What about _my_ humiliation?! Why do you think I’ve been scrubbing beakers full of toxic waste and covering has-been boy bands for the past two and a half weeks?! Not for fun, I’ll tell you that! It was so _you_ wouldn’t find out about this! Do you think I wanted Megan to catch me?! No, of course not! I didn’t want _anyone_ to find out, and I especially didn’t want you to find out!” He could feel his face burning as he gasped to calm his lungs down. Josh said nothing, just sat perched on the edge of the mattress with his mouth hanging open stupidly.

“Look.” Drake sighed and stared down at the pattern on his pajama pants. “It wasn’t a dare or a bet or anything. The only person who knows about it is Megan…and now you too, I guess. I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. So please don’t be mad at me.” He muttered the last part into his chest. Josh remained still and Drake shifted uncomfortably in the awkward quiet.

“Why?” He murmured it so softly that Drake wasn’t even sure he’d said anything at all. “If it wasn’t a trick and it wasn’t a bet, then why did you do it?”

Drake shrugged. “I was curious.”

“You were… _curious_?” That familiar tone of superiority was back and Drake could feel the pressure in his chest easing up. “Curious about what, exactly?”

“Well, you see Mark Fletcher said that I probably kissed like his grandfather and that girls have low standards and I told him I would show him my skills right there but then Mom made me go buy cardigans so I thought I’d see if I was a good kisser by guy standards and since you were sleeping I thought no harm no foul, right?” For a split second it almost looked like Josh was disappointed, but that might just have been Drake’s exhausted mind playing tricks on him.

“So let me get this straight. Some guy you don’t even like insulted your kissing skills and you decided to make out with me in my sleep to prove to him that you were still a good kisser. Is that what you’re telling me here?” The look of irritation on his face told Drake that his reasoning might not have been as sound as he thought it was.

“No, see, I still knew I was a good kisser. I just needed to make sure that I was worthy of my best kisser reputation from _everyone_.” That sounded better to him, but Josh didn’t look so convinced.

“Why do you care in the first place what a bunch of _guys_ think of your kissing abilities?! It’s not like they’re the market you’re targeting, right? Why didn’t you just solve this problem like you solve all your other problems—by making out with like another dozen girls? That usually seems to work just fine for you.”

“Yeah…” Drake smiled at his simple yet effective problem-solving tactics. “But this was different! I just, I don’t know how else to say it.”

“Apparently.” Josh sniped at him. Drake didn’t know how to make him see that this had been the only way to solve that crisis, and Josh seemed out of questions to interrogate him with. For the third time in twenty minutes, their room fell into an agitated silence.

“…was I?” Josh muttered something without looking at Drake, who only caught the last part of it.

“Come again?”

Josh exhaled in dramatic exasperation, but still didn’t look at Drake. “How was I?”

Drake paused, not entirely sure that he understood the question. “What?”

“Kissing! How was I at _kissing_?!” Josh glared at him from behind reddening cheeks. “Don’t you make me say it again!”

“Ooooh, that.” Drake tilted his head thoughtfully. There were a lot of things he could say, most of which would probably freak Josh out even more than he already was. To avoid further complications Drake decided to play it safe. “You weren’t bad. Just…average, I guess.”

“ _Just average?_ ” Josh sounded strangely offended.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve made out with worse.”

“Oh, well that’s just _great_!” Josh threw his hands up in frustration. “First I find out that you used me in my sleep for your own twisted ego issues, then you tell me that I wasn’t even that great of a kisser! Just fantastic!”

“Calm down, man.” Drake hadn’t anticipated this odd turn in the conversation, though he couldn’t deny being relieved that Josh had stopped slapping him. “I mean, you were sleeping so I guess that—”

“Right, that’s right! I was asleep! It wasn’t a fair comparison! I demand another evaluation!” Josh stared triumphantly at him.

“You demand a what? What?” Drake started to feel a little panicky. This whole thing was getting way out of control. “What do you mean you—” His protests were cut short by the sudden sensation of Josh’s lips smothering his mouth.

Now this wasn’t at all where he had expected the night to end up at.

After only a few seconds of the “evaluation” it became clear to Drake that Josh was a much better kisser asleep than he was awake. His eagerness to prove himself almost knocked Drake off the mattress, again. And his moves were anything but subtle. He was all pushy and slobbery about it. Drake had two options here—he could either politely bow out or he could show Josh how great kissing is actually done, and he knew that the second option would not end in a good place. Any moron could pick the best choice. Then again, Drake wasn’t just any moron. Readjusting his balance he reached up and bracketed Josh’s oblong head, taking decisive control of the make out situation.

The first thing he did was slow Josh down. The one fact he knew to be true for everyone when it came to something fun was that if you take the fun thing away the person will inevitably want it more. So he pulled back over and over, coaxing Josh to chase his lips. And when Josh caught him, Drake rewarded him by nipping at his lower lip and darting his tongue over the corners of his mouth. After Josh finally relaxed his anxious movements Drake dropped his hands from his face, trailing them lightly down his arms. Then he leaned back and let Josh practice his technique. Josh kissed him softly and carefully before plunging forward hard; Drake opened his mouth in surprise. He could sense Josh hesitate, unsure of himself, before edging his tongue inside. His whole approach was so childlike that Drake found the urge to cuddle him rising in his stomach again.

Drake wound his tongue into Josh’s mouth and began tracing over the roof of it, memorizing its ridges and planes. He found a spot that made Josh’s shoulders shake a little when he pressed against it and he focused his attention there. Josh seemed to be losing concentration; his tongue and lips fumbled and then stopped working entirely. Instead, he began making low noises in the back of his throat and his breathing got funny. It was when the first actual moan came out that Drake decided he should really stop before they did something that Josh was gonna regret in the morning. Besides, he’d started to notice a familiar stiffening in his pajama pants that he was fairly sure Josh wouldn’t appreciate. When he pulled away, all he could hear was Josh’s staccato breathing and the rapid beating of his own heart in his ears.

“See.” He smirked coyly at his red-faced stepbrother. “All you needed was a good teacher. And hey, you got the best.” He waited for the snappy comeback, but Josh didn’t say anything. His eyes were shaded beneath his long lashes and his lips seemed even puffier than usual. Drake began to worry that he’d already gone too far.

“Hey, man, you okay?” Still no reaction. Drake’s heart started to pound again. “I didn’t, um, push you too much, did I? Josh? Buddy? Is everything alright?” The oversized head in front of him nodded vaguely.

“Everything’s fine. It’s just that…um…” Drake wished he’d come out and say what was bothering him already. He was uncomfortable enough with his growing problem down south.

“What?”

“I think I should go to the bathroom.” Drake twisted his face in confusion at this abrupt announcement.

“Huh?”

Josh fidgeted with his thumbnail. “There’s something that I need to…take care of.”

“You gotta pee? Dude, then go and pee.” Drake didn’t understand the dilemma.

“No, I don’t have to pee.” Josh seemed to be getting more and more agitated, which was starting to seriously bug Drake. “I need to take care of something _else_. Somewhere that is not _here_.”

“Poop?”

“No, not poop!” Josh finally looked up at him, and Drake couldn’t help but think that he’d never seen Josh so embarrassed before. “I have an urgent and _hard_ problem I need to relieve! Down…there!” Drake followed his frantic glance towards his pajama bottoms and suddenly realized what he was talking about. He was about to agree and send him off but then he paused, struck with what was without a doubt the single dumbest idea he’d ever had. And he’d had some dumb ideas in his life.

“You know, you don’t have to go to the bathroom.” It was out before what little forethought he had could catch it.

“Well yeah, I could just wait until you fall asleep to do it but that seems a little mean…”

“No.” Drake took a deep breath and ignored all the better judgment he’d ever had. “I mean, you don’t have to leave. You can…do it here.”

“What?” Josh blanched. “Drake, I can’t even use the toilet in front of you. How do you expect me to be able to do… _this_ …in front of you?”

This was it. His last chance to stop. He could lay down right now, pull the covers over his head, and wake up tomorrow like none of this had ever happened. That was exactly was he should do, he thought, as he proceeded to do precisely the opposite.

“I could help you.” The look on Josh’s face was priceless, and if Drake hadn’t been so terrified of getting punched he might have been able to enjoy it more. Josh sputtered and stammered, and then he gave Drake the boldest look he’d ever seen.

“Drake, are you…seducing me?” Josh said it quietly, but his eyes flickered in the darkness and Drake’s mouth suddenly dried up.

“If I say yes, will you hate me?” Drake stared at him, trying to look much more confident than he felt. After what seemed like way too long, Josh finally leaned forward.

“No, I won’t hate you.” He whispered it warm against Drake’s mouth. “Seducer.” Then he pushed forward gently, and that was all Drake needed.

He grabbed Josh by the nape of his neck and pulled him down towards the mattress where they both landed with a muffled oomph. Forgetting all his teacherly professionalism, Drake shoved his tongue into Josh’s mouth like he might never get the chance to do it again. He went straight for that spot that made him shiver and licked at it like a kid with a lollipop. Josh, already obviously disoriented by Drake’s aggressive switch, seemed to abandon all hope of proving his kissing skills now. Instead, he bit at the invading tongue and thin lips in front of him and Drake smirked to himself; Josh must’ve liked that particular move from before.

Actually, Drake was equally stunned by his sudden aggressiveness. With girls he’d always been gentle and delicate. They seemed to like that, and he did too. If it did get aggressive, it was never him who initiated it. Once in a while he’d have a date who wanted him and wanted him now—not that he could blame her. Mostly though, it was just soft and slow make out sessions that ended with the girl staring dreamily at him and sighing contentedly. That was what he was good at and that was what he liked. There had never been a question of him not enjoying making out with girls. But something about kissing Josh reminded him of the near-constant slap fights, yelling contests, and wrestling matches they’d had over the years. Maybe it was the feeling of Josh’s weight against him or maybe it was the way they kept frantically moving or maybe it was that familiar smell of Jasmine Dream bath salt sweat. Whatever it was, it was driving Drake crazy and he wasn’t sure if that was a very good thing or a very bad thing. What he did know was that he definitely was not alone in feeling like this.

On top of him, Josh squirmed like an overly friendly dog. His hands kept brushing over the hem of Drake’s tee shirt before bolting back up to touch his face and neck. Meanwhile Drake’s hands were idling above Josh’s shoulder blades, feeling for the way his back arched and sunk. Even having lost a lot of his pillowy weight, Drake still marveled at how soft his body was. There were no pointy, protruding bones or surprisingly sharp joints like most of his girlfriends’ had. Girls’ bodies were soft, but not in the same way. Drake never felt like he could break Josh; he never felt like he had to restrain himself with him. He thought that maybe that was what this feeling was, but he wasn’t completely sure.

The sound of strained gasping above him threw Drake back into reality. He realized that, almost unconsciously, he’d been sucking at Josh’s mouth in such a frenzy that neither of them had had much in the way of air for quite some time. Dizzy and a little lightheaded, Drake pried himself away.

“You need a break?” He couldn’t stop himself from staring dazedly at Josh’s puffy pink lips, glistening with saliva in the dim light.

“Nah.” Josh blinked slowly, obviously trying to regain his composure. Drake thought that it should totally be a crime for him to look so cute. “Breaks are way overrated.” He swung forward again, but this time Drake stopped him with a palm to the chest.

“Wait.” Drake grabbed the bottom of his shirt and yanked, briefly aware that he’d never be able to change in front of Josh without blushing again. After he got it off he tossed it over the side of the mattress and looked back expectantly at Josh.

Even in the dark, Drake could see him falter. His hands clenched the hem of his pajama shirt and twisted, but didn’t make any decisive move. He looked nervous—and something else. Drake tried to remember what that face meant. It reminded him of the time at The Premiere when a pretty girl had laughed at his favorite sweater vest, before Drake “accidentally” dropped it into the school wood chipper. He looked…ashamed.

“Josh,” Drake was starting to get cold without a shirt on. “What is it, man?”

“Nothing.” His eyes darted down and Drake knew he was lying. “It’s just, don’t laugh at me, okay?”

“Laugh at you? Why would I laugh at you? Unless you got, like, a tattoo of Oprah since I last saw you shirtless? You—didn’t, did you?” Drake didn’t know if he could get through this with Oprah watching.

“No, I did not get a tattoo of Oprah! I couldn’t have her getting all—stretched out and saggy.” Drake grimaced; that was a little more than he cared to visualize. “But I’m not as…fit as you are and I don’t have flawless skin and—I’m just not perfect like you, alright?” This sudden confession made Drake giggle, which he realized almost instantly was not an appropriate response as an angry Josh smacked him in the shoulder.

“Why is it that when I ask you not to do something you immediately do it anyway?! It’s like we’re not even speaking the same language! Granted, I’m not fluent in _Moron_ but—”

“Hey!” There was nothing quite like an insult to ruin the mood, but Drake forced himself to stay cool. He was not going to let this end in a fight. “I wasn’t laughing at you like that. I was laughing because you’re so—adorable.” At this, all the anger in Josh’s face melted.

“Adorable? I’m…adorable?” Josh seemed to consider this. “Are you sure I’m not manly and/or ruggedly handsome?” Drake couldn’t stop himself from laughing at that.

“You’re adorable. Deal with it.” Josh made a sound of halfhearted acceptance. “And for the record, if I wanted someone who was perfect like me I would do _this_ with myself.”

“Well, how benevolent of you to let us mere mortals be in your presence. Are you sure I’m not going to contaminate you with my _unworthiness_?” Drake sighed and let his sarcasm slide for the moment.

“What I’m saying is, don’t be ashamed. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.” Even as he reassured Josh, an unsettling thought came to mind. “But, um, you don’t have that rash _down there_ , do you?”

“What? No!” Josh’s fervent denial eased his concerns.

“Good. Then nothing to be ashamed of.” Drake grinned at him in what he hoped was a sufficiently naughty way. “Now will you take off your shirt, please. I’m getting chilly here.” Rolling his eyes, Josh obediently stripped off his top and crossed his arms stiffly across his chest. Rapidly losing patience, Drake decided that chatting time was officially over and pulled him back towards the mattress.

Their kissing was less frenzied now, partly because they were getting used to each other and partly because they were busy fumblingly groping around elsewhere. Drake’s hands ran circles over Josh’s lower back before brushing across his stomach. Josh jumped and he froze.

“Ticklish.” Josh muttered. Drake snickered and slid his hands to Josh’s hips, dipping underneath his waistband. Josh wavered against his mouth but didn’t say anything, so Drake plunged on.

He brushed against a tuft of hair before hitting “little Josh”. For a second he panicked, overwhelmed by the urge to pull away and yell “Gross!” before sprinting off to scrub his hands with bleach. But then he recognized a familiar sensation of smooth skin and hot stickiness and it didn’t seem so gross anymore. He ran his fingers curiously up its length and Josh’s breathing hitched. Encouraged by this, he rubbed the wet head roughly with his palm. Josh cracked out a low yelp before moving over to nip at Drake’s ear.

Without warning, Drake bucked violently and shuddered. He hadn’t demonstrated ear-kissing techniques for a very good reason—it was one of the few things, aside from the obvious, that seriously drove him wild. A lot of girls didn’t even think about it and he never suggested it; him horny and flailing was not really something he wanted them to see. Way uncool. And he hadn’t really wanted Josh to see it, but now that he was already doing it Drake didn’t think he wanted him to stop either. Plus, he was actually decent at it. In fact, he was more than decent. Drake caught himself moaning and grinding against Josh’s thigh, and he suddenly wanted a lot more than just a tongue in his ear.

“Pants…” He whispered it with a bit of desperation. From against his neck Josh murmured, “What?”

“Pants.” He said it louder this time, and with more urgency. “Take off your pants.”

“Oh.” Josh leaned back and struggled to get his pajama bottoms and underwear off. Without waiting to be asked, Drake tore off his own pants and flung them somewhere that wasn’t the bed. He turned back to find Josh staring at him in a rather unnerving way.

“What?” He moved to cover himself, considering with increasing anxiety what it was that Josh had found so startling.

“You weren’t wearing underpants.” Josh said it with some repulsion and Drake almost kicked him off the bed for making him freak out like that.

“Does it really matter?!” Josh hesitated. He looked like he sort of wanted to say something, but then he shrugged and moved back towards Drake. Hovering above his body like he was afraid he might crush him, Josh carefully kept at least six inches between them. Drake, however, was not in the mood to wait any longer. He grabbed Josh’s hips and pulled down hard, and instantly his whole body got hotter. For a second they laid there without moving; both of their penises twitched painfully, sandwiched between their stomachs. Then Drake felt a light lick at his ear and they both started moving uncontrollably again.

Even though he’d been the one forcing Josh on top of him, Drake was still a little thrown off being _between_ someone and the bed. He tried adjusting himself to the force of another person moving above him but found that was significantly easier thought of than done. Frustrated by his own bumbling, he settled for fisting his sheets and pressing insistently against Josh’s sweaty skin. For his part, Josh kept sucking at Drake’s ear and timidly rubbing down into him, all with his hands fixed firmly on the mattress besides Drake’s head. Drake felt him toy lightly with the ends of his hair, but that was as close to his body as his hands came. The initial sensation of skin to skin had been a rush, but it only lasted an instant and Drake quickly found himself desperate for Josh to touch him. Touch his face, his arms, his chest, anywhere. He begrudgingly accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to keep acting cool if he actually wanted to come in the near future. He hated being the first one to crack under pressure; he’d hoped Josh would succumb to his powers of sexiness before he completely reverted to the maniacally horny teenager that lurked beneath all the charm and mousse. But then again things like pride and dignity seemed so frivolous with Josh licking around the shell of his ear and all. Abandoning the few shreds of cool he had left, Drake reached up and wrapped his arms over Josh’s back—in what felt like the most pathetic and needy way ever—and clung tightly to him. Under the additional weight Josh’s arms buckled and the remaining safety distant he’d been keeping between their bodies disappeared. He collapsed against Drake with a dull thump, momentarily knocking the wind out of both of them. When he could breathe normally again Drake started grinding against Josh like his life depended on it, which at this point it kind of did. Banking on instinctual reactions, Drake almost cried with relief when Josh finally began to grind back, fast and hard. Instead, he held on and closed his eyes, listening to the cacophony of their uneven panting.

Josh moved down from his ear to his neck, running his tongue roughly over the hollow just above his collarbone. Drake dug his nails into the softness of his back, squeezing at the layer of cushioning fat that none of his girlfriends had ever had. His hands started to slip over the lines of sweat their frenetic humping produced and he clawed wildly for some traction. One slipped lower, daringly running over Josh’s butt, while he wound the other into the mess of dark curls buried against his neck.

Josh kissed the side of Drake’s throat before dragging his teeth along his jaw line. One hand grabbed fistfuls of hair, tearing at it in a way that made Drake want to remind him that bald patches were not sexy. The other hand traced the curve of his chest, running down over his ribs and waist before heading back the way it came. Rough fingertips raced over Drake’s right nipple, causing him to yelp at the shock of pleasure. His reaction didn’t go unnoticed; Josh’s hand gravitated back to his sensitive chest, rubbing and pinching both nipples hard. Somewhere in the back of his mind Drake felt vaguely disturbed by how much he was enjoying Josh’s new aggressiveness. But between that and the increasing amount of friction against his dick, the feeling of being almost there had finally begun to rise in the pit of his stomach and everything else was secondary. He panted louder and arched fiercely against Josh’s slick body.

His desperation must have been obvious because after a second Josh released his vice grip on Drake’s hair and snaked his arm between their shaking bodies. Drake felt it before he believed it—Josh wrapped his fist around both their dicks and started pumping. It wasn’t hesitant or cautious or anything that was trademark Josh, and it had a hint of desperation to it that gratified Drake, but mostly it was just really damn good and more than enough to push him right over the edge.

“Ah, Josh! Ah, ah, ah, ah!” He groaned low and loud, writhing and digging his nails into Josh’s scalp. The intensity of it had him reeling, his ears buzzing with what felt like the sizzle of every nerve in his body. He’d never come like that in his life; this so beat jacking off alone.

After a minute or so his own body started to relax, but he could still feel the tension coursing through Josh. When his ears stopped humming he heard nothing but harsh panting and the smacking of sticky skin against sticky skin. He reached back up and hung loosely onto Josh’s neck, pressing his softening penis into Josh’s still-hard one as both of them continued to be pumped at a furious pace. Now that his boxer buddy wasn’t bothering him, Drake could wait patiently for Josh to finish.

Finally, his shoulders seized up and his whole body got really still. Drake felt Josh’s dick pulse before Josh caught his unsuspecting mouth in a kiss. Shallow and broken up by a succession of low moans, Josh’s lips quivered along with the rest of his body as Drake felt a hot wetness pool between their stomachs. When his ragged breathing evened out, Josh slowly lifted himself up and they both looked down to survey the damage.

“Here.” Drake tossed Josh a handful of tissues from the box at the side of his bed. They wiped themselves down thoroughly, eager not to fall into awkwardness immediately, then made an attempt to clean up anything that had gotten on the sheets. Drake crumpled his up and dropped them next to the mattress, much to Josh’s horror.

“Don’t just _leave_ those there! What are you, a Neanderthal?” Drake responded by grabbing his arm and yanking him down. The tissues he was holding flew towards the center of the room.

“Just go to bed, will you.” Josh opened his mouth to protest, but Drake got there first and silenced him with a chaste kiss and a giggle. Then he turned on his side, pulled the covers over himself, and promptly fell asleep.

\---

Drake opened his groggy eyes and for a split second was fully convinced that he’d just had the weirdest dream ever. Then he went to move his arm off his chest—it was kind of hard to breathe with it there—and realized that the arm slung across his ribcage did not belong to him. He turned to find a very asleep Josh, snoring like a hobo and drooling lightly on his pillow. He was starting to seriously consider the possibility that this dream might have actually happened.

“Ahem.” Drake spun around and screamed like a prepubescent girl. Behind him, Josh jerked awake.

“I didn’t mean it, Oprah! What?!” Josh blinked at the morning light. “What happened?” He looked perplexedly from Drake’s nakedness to Drake’s bed, then to his own nakedness and back at Drake. Then he looked down at the middle of the room where Megan stood, watching them with her arms crossed and he screamed too. They both tried frantically to say anything in the way of an explanation, but nothing coherent came out. Feeling like he’d been here before and sensing the importance of getting her out of the room, Drake finally managed to construct a lucid thought.

“We’ll do your homework for a month.” Next to him, Josh’s jaw unhinged a little. Megan looked calculatingly between them.

“Two months. And you’ll also do my chores.” She seemed irritatingly calm about this, which made Drake wonder if she didn’t have evil superpowers after all. Josh balked at the offer even as Drake staunchly ignored him.

“Deal.”

“Good. You start today.” Megan turned briskly to leave, like she’d just closed a high stakes business deal. When she reached the doorway she threw them a mild look of disapproval. “And please, would you two at least put on some pants? A girl can go blind like that. I swear, I’m going to need _so_ much therapy when I get out of this house…” They glanced back down at themselves as the door clicked shut behind her.

“We really need to start locking that door.” Josh spoke listlessly, his eyes vaguely glazed over.

“Yeah we do.” Drake thought they should probably look into some new locks while they were at it. He paused to consider the various lock-picking tools Megan had no doubt acquired over the years. Maybe they should look into a professional security system too. Silence crept back into the room as they sat there letting the stun of what had happened over the last seven hours sink in.

“Well.” Drake stammered, unable to handle the growing discomfort. He had not anticipated how incredibly awkward facing Josh would be in the morning. The sunlight from the window illuminated everything—their clothes flung around the room, the wads of tissue next to the bed, the mess of blankets and sheets, and especially them, all _nude_ and everything. He glanced at his clock; it was only 6:19AM on a Sunday morning. He didn’t know if he could make it for the rest of his…life.

“So.” Josh’s fingers tapped nervously on the edge of the mattress. “I guess I’ll be going back to bed now. Um, back to _my_ bed, that is.” He started to quickly gather up his scattered pieces of clothing.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Drake tried to look casual as he wrestled with his pajama pants. Josh was already back in his underwear.

“Yeah.” Josh nodded in over-emphatic agreement. “Yeah, yeah.” With that he rushed down the loft ladder and scurried into his own bed, diving deep under the covers. Drake pulled his tee shirt back on and buried himself back beneath the sheets, both unbelievably relieved and kind of sad that Josh was out of his bed. He closed his eyes and ran his hand over the still-warm spot where he’d been. Taking in a deep breath he noticed a new scent soaked into his pillow.

Inhaling the heady smell of jasmine-sweet sweat, Drake smiled. That should be more than enough, he thought wryly. At least until next time.


End file.
